On Bill Clinton’s third day in office, he lifted the global gag rule. On George Bush’s third day in office, he reinstated it. Watch for Barack Obama to blow it away again.

Meta: I love GOOD’s infographic work. Why isn’t it more popular? The fact that it never really seems to break out calls into question some of my core beliefs about what people find cool and useful. Troubling. Any ideas?

Robin, I’ve been meaning to comment on your meta-graf for a while. I picked up the GOOD Sheet on Health from September at a Starbucks (loved the context of deployment, and the minimal newsprint.) I like the idea of a little bite size look at an issue, focusing on numbers and mechanics, with visual engine. But a lot of the infographics here are just not helpful. Start with the “A Look At What’s Wrong” infographic. The little medicine cups are cute, but humans are really bad at judging relative volume, especially in a tapered tumbler, especially in flat perspective, especially at such a small scale. 36% and 15% are virtually indistinguishable. The little graphics next to the cost breakdown by type of expenditure are not informative–a coffin? a pirates hook? The time line is vague and unscaled. “1930s” and “1935” turn out to be the same thing. The icon indicating legislative action is not consistent–its missing from 1959’s FEHPA and SCHIP in 1997. Lost in the timeline is any sort of recognition that what “health insurance” means evolved a LOT during the 20th century.

The government spending syringe is *incredibly* confusing. The attendant numbers are each government’s health spending as a percentage of their own gdp, but the syringe makes it seem like they’re percentages of some grand total. Convenieniently the percentages of the countries chosen add up to slightly more than 100%, but conceptually that makes no sense at all.

The winged baby bottles are rather disturbing but effective, but a bar graph to compare relative percentages is only marginally better than the syringe. The life expectancy graphic is the most reasonable and powerful one, but the canes are scaled such that the curving mitigates the impact of the decrease in height.

The information buried in the symptoms box could really have used some nice graphical treatment, but instead it’s just hard to read.

The plan chart is confusing because it makes it seem like the Mandate vs Singple PAyer vs Incremental vs Guaranteed Health Care access are branded, unique packages, yet obviously (due to the very catchy OBama/McCain tags) there are components in each that can be taken out and recombined. There are lots of stories here that are just not being told visually at all.

I think these could use more comic book mentality, more original iconography, better font design, and a long hard review of the graphical representation of data. . .

Of course I should just shut up and make my own sheet fit legibly in the same space with only three spot colors. . .